There was a well in Apricot Blossom Alley by the name of Iron Lock Well. A metal chain that was as thick as a young man's arm was dangling down inside the well, and no one knew why the chain was there, nor who had done something as strange and pointless as hanging a chain in the well. Even the oldest individuals in the town were unable to provide any accounts.
It was said that there was once a curious individual in the town who wanted to examine just how long the chain was. The old people in the town warned them that those who tried to pull the chain out of the well would have one year shaved off their lifespan with each foot of the chain that was pulled, but the man paid no heed to the ominous warning. After tugging vigorously on the chain for 15 minutes, a huge pile of it had been pulled out, but there was still no end in sight.
At that point, the man was already completely exhausted, and he left the pile of chain next to the well winch, proclaiming that he was going to be back the next day, and that he was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. However, on the very same day after he returned home, he died on his bed, bleeding out of all of his orifices, and he refused to close his eyes in death.
No matter what his family members tried, they were unable to get his corpse to close its eyes. In the end, an old man whose family had lived near the well for generations instructed that family to carry the corpse over to the well so that it could "watch" the old man return the chain back into the well. Finally, after the entire chain had sunk down into the depths, the body finally closed its eyes.
An old man and a small child were slowly making their way toward the Iron Lock Well. The child was still very young, with two lines of snot trailing out of his nostrils, but he could tell a very coherent and organized story, completely unlike the average rural child who had only been attending school for half a year.
At this moment, the child was looking up with a pair of large eyes that resembled black grapes, and with a gentle sniffle, the two lines of snot retreated back into his nostrils. The child was looking at the storyteller who was carrying the large white bowl, and he said, "That's the end of my story. You're going to show me what's in your bowl now, right?"
"Don't be in such a hurry. Let me take a seat on the edge of the well, and I'll let you look as much as you want," the old man chuckled.
The child quickly issued a threat that was disguised as a "friendly" warning. "You can't break your promise. Otherwise, you'll die a terrible death! As soon as you reach the Iron Lock Well, you'll immediately fall in headfirst, and I'm not fishing up your dead body. If that doesn't happen, then a bolt of lightning will suddenly fall from the sky and zap you into a piece of charcoal. After that, I'll pick up a rock and smash your charred remains to pieces..."
The old man was beginning to develop a headache as he listened to all of the vicious curses being directed at him by the child, and he hurriedly reassured, "I'll definitely let you look! Who did you learn to speak like that from?"
"My mother!" the child replied in a categorical manner.
"Your mother must truly be an extremely fine and compassionate woman," the old man "praised".
The child suddenly stopped in his tracks, and his brows furrowed slightly as he asked, "You're insulting her, aren't you? I know some people like to say good things about others when they mean the exact opposite, like Song Jixin!"
The old man hurriedly denied the accusation, then changed the subject as he asked, "Are there often some strange things happening in this town?"
The child nodded in response.
"Tell me about it," the old man prompted.
The child pointed at the old man with a serious expression as he said, "There's a strange old man who goes around carrying a large white bowl, but doesn't let anyone put money into it. Even before you finished your story, my mother said that you were spinning a very confusing tale, and that you're clearly a serial fraud who makes a living off deceiving others, and that's why you were so insistent on refusing the copper coins that I tried to give you. Now show me what's in that bowl!"
The old man was completely dumbfounded.
As it turned out, the storyteller under the old locust tree from before had asked this child to take him to Apricot Blossom Alley to see the well there. Initially, the child was unwilling to oblige, so the old man told him that his big white bowl was very special, and it was holding something extremely rare and extraordinary. The child had always been very energetic and adventurous from birth.
The analogy made by his parents was that it was as if he were missing a bottom, so he didn't know how to sit down. From a very young age, he was always wandering around aimlessly with the delinquents led by Liu Xianyang, but what was quite remarkable about him was that he also had the patience to sit completely motionlessly under the scorching sun for an hour just to fish up an eel or a catfish, displaying incredible patience for someone his age.
Hence, when the old man proclaimed that there was something extraordinary in his bowl, the child immediately took the bait.
The old man had started off by stating that he wanted to try and lift the child to see how heavy he was, and gauge whether he weighed over 20 kilograms. Despite the strange nature of the request, the child agreed without any hesitation. In his mind, it wasn't like he was going to lose anything just from being lifted.
However, much to the child's dismay and exasperation, the old man held his bowl over his left palm and tried to lift the child with all his might using his right arm five or six times in a row, only to fail every single time. The child glanced disdainfully at the old man's thin arms and legs, and he shook his head as he thought about how Chen Ping'an was far stronger than the old man, even though they had roughly the same build.
However, the child was very smart, and he knew that if he wanted to see what was in the bowl, then he would have to remain in the old man's good graces, so he held back the urge to insult him. In the Clay Vase Alley and Apricot Blossom Alley area, the child could arguably rank third when it came to winning verbal altercations on the street and delivering potent insults, while Song Jixin ranked second, and the child's mother reigned supreme at the top.
The old man made his way over to the well, but he didn't sit down on its edge.
The well was constructed from clay bricks, and for some reason, the old man's breathing was beginning to grow heavier.
The child also approached the well before jumping backward with his back facing it, and his bottom landed perfectly on the well's edge as he took a seat.
The old man was terrified to see this. If the child had made even a slight misjudgment, he would've fallen into the well, and given the stories and stigma that surrounded the well, it would most likely be very difficult to even find anyone willing to fish his body up from the bottom.
The old man slowly took a few steps forward, leaning down to inspect the metal chain, one end of which was bound tightly to the underside of the well winch.
I wonder whose possession this prized artifact will ultimately end up in, the old man thought to himself with a myriad of emotions in his heart.
He reached out his spare left hand and stared at the palm.
There was a complex system of lines on his palm, but there was a brand new line that was slowly elongating, much like a lengthening crack on a piece of porcelain.
For deities, observing their own palm was like observing an entire world, but for the old man, he was only looking at himself.
His brows furrowed tightly as he exclaimed, "If things are already this terrible after just half a day, then what's become of them?"
The child had already stood up on the edge of the well, and he had one hand on his hip while pointing at the old man with his other hand as he urged loudly, "Are you going to show me your white bowl or not?!"
"Hurry up and get down from there! I'll show you my bowl now," the old man said in an exasperated manner.
The child was feeling rather skeptical, but he still jumped down from the edge of the well.
The old man hesitated momentarily, following which a solemn look appeared on his face. "It seems we were fated to meet, so it's not out of the question for me to show you what this bowl can do. However, after you see it, you can't tell anyone else about it, not even your mother. If you can do that, then I'll show you. If you can't, then no matter how much you prod or insult me, I won't let you take even a single peek."
The child nodded in response. "I can do that. Show me."
The old man made his way over to the well with a serious expression, and he looked down to find that the child was squatting on the edge of the well this time, and he was beginning to regret picking out this unruly child as his guide.
The old man banished those trivial thoughts from his mind, then grabbed onto the underside of his bowl with all five fingers of his right hand as he faced the well. His palm then began to tilt ever so slightly to a degree that was barely detectable.
The child felt as if he had already been waiting for a very long time, but no change took place in the bowl above his head, and the old man's posture also remained unchanged.
Right as the lines of snot flowing out of the child's nostrils were about to reach his lips, and he was about to run out of patience, a stream of water that was as thick as a finger poured out of the bowl before silently flowing into the well.
The child was furious, and he was just about to erupt into an angry tirade when he abruptly shut his mouth in surprise at what he was seeing.
A short while later, the expression on his face had already turned from astonishment to confusion, and after that, a fearful look began to appear in his eyes. All of a sudden, he snapped back to his senses and jumped down from the edge of the well before fleeing toward his home.
As it turned out, the amount of water that the old man had poured into the well out of his white bowl had already far exceeded the capacity of a large water vat, but there was still more water constantly pouring out of the bowl, and the child was convinced that he had seen a ghost.
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Liu Xianyang casually snapped a branch that had only just sprouted out of a tree that he was passing by, and he began to use it for sword practice. He was spinning around in circles like a wheel gone mad, raising up a massive dust cloud and making no effort to look after the pair of new boots that he was wearing.
After emerging from the town, he made his way southward. After crossing the covered bridge funded by Master Song and walking about one to two more kilometers, he would arrive at the blacksmith forge run by Master Ruan and his daughter. Liu Xianyang had always been extremely arrogant and unruly, but it had only taken a single sentence for Master Ruan to earn his complete and utter admiration: "We came here solely to forge swords."
Liu Xianyang couldn't help but get excited at just the mere thought of being able to own a real sword in the future, and he tossed the branch aside before breaking into a sprint while yelling in excitement.
Liu Xianyang thought back to the handful of fist techniques that Master Ruan had taught him in private, and he started to practice them, looking very much like he was cut out for the part.
He was getting closer and closer to the covered bridge, and there were four people seated on the steps on the northern end of the bridge.
One of those was a beautiful and voluptuous woman who was holding a boy in a big red robe in her arms. His chin was raised up high as if he were a general that had just returned from a comprehensive victory in battle, while on the other side of the steps was an imposing old man with a head of white hair.
The old man was in the process of consoling an angry little girl, whose skin was so fair and delicate that it was as if she were the most intricately crafted porcelain doll in this world. Her delicate skin was glittering and translucent under the sun, to the point that one could even clearly see a series of fine veins under her skin.
The two children had just had a verbal altercation, and the little girl was on the verge of tears, while the little boy was only looking more and more triumphant.
The old man was built like a small mountain, and the woman beside him gave him an apologetic look, only to be completely ignored.
There was also a young man with the Lu surname standing at the foot of the steps. He was the eldest grandson of the Lu Clan's leader, and his name was Lu Zhengchun. Perhaps the earth and water in certain places really did nurture the people there better than in other places; the local residents of the town were generally better-looking than the people outside of the town.
However, Lu Zhengchun had already completely ruined his own body through alcohol abuse and excessive sexual activity, presenting him as a very unsightly young man to the four people sitting on the steps. The Lu Clan owned the most dragon kilns out of any clan in the town, and their dragon kilns were also of the best quality. It was also the clan that produced the most descendants that left the town to settle elsewhere.
Lu Zhengchun was normally always strutting around the town as if he owned the place, but at this moment, his complexion was very pale, and he was wearing a reserved and humble expression. His entire body was also extremely tensed up, as if the slightest misstep here would lead to the execution of his entire clan.
The boy was speaking in a language that was foreign to the town's residents as he said, "Mother, is the ancestor of that little worm with the Liu surname really..."